


Invisible Connections

by abyss1826



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Charlottetown (Anne of Green Gables), Cole's new classmates, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26079424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyss1826/pseuds/abyss1826
Summary: “So, no Mr. Philipses at this school?” Gilbert asked as he and Cole walked from the train station to Dr. Ward’s practice.“Not a Philips to be seen,” Cole replied, grinning. It had become a habit, in the weeks after he’d run away, to meet Gilbert at the train station on Saturdays. He came with updates on their friends, and usually a letter or two from Anne and Diana, which Cole would respond to in time to give to Gilbert before he left for Avonlea on Sundays. It was a nice way to stay connected.“I’m glad.”In which we follow Cole to Charlottetown, where he makes some unexpected connections back to Avonlea in his new life
Relationships: Cole Mackenzie/Original Male Character(s), Gilbert Blythe & Cole MacKenzie
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	1. A String Entwines

The home of a blind woman at the edge of town should be easy to rob; that was what Nathaniel had thought when he made it back to Charlottetown alone. Everyone would be asleep, he had assumed. He had assumed incorrectly. 

When Mr. Hepburn heard someone open the front door, knowing his wife and son were in bed, he’d ordered their dogs to stay and crept down the stairs. There was a tall man looking through their silverware. When he wasn’t noticed, Mr. Hepburn trod silently to where the cast iron pans hung on the wall and picked one; but as he approached with it Nathaniel saw his reflection in the glass of the china cabinet and turned around, stepping back into the entryway to avoid Mr. Hepburn’s swing.

“Now there sir, you wouldn’t want this to get messy, would you?” The burglar had a revolver aimed at his chest, and Mr. Hepburn’s own rifle hung near the front door, behind the man. There was movement above them. He hoped the others weren’t hearing anything.

“Get out of my house,” he growled. The man, his back to the open front door, took a step closer and thumbed the hammer onto the firing pin.

“I don’t think I’ll be doing that, actually. Between a cast iron pan and a blind woman, I think my odds here are much better than yours.” Nathaniel grinned. There was a thud from outside, and when the man glanced back to look, Mr. Hepburn took the opportunity to close in on him. But the burglar’s finger was still on the trigger.

Three gunshots rang out in the night.

Mr. Hepburn stepped back as the man fell forward, dead, onto their floor, with two bullet holes in his back. He looked outside to see his son on the porch, his face white and blank as parchment.

“Jude… what have you  _ done _ ?”

“I’ll… I’ll take care of it, dad,” he replied, unloading a revolver Mr. Hepburn had never known him to possess as Genevieve and the dogs rushed down the stairs.

“Patrick?!” He turned to see her freeze as her hand brushed against the new hole in the plaster wall. He pulled his wife into a hug.

“Everything’s alright, we’re okay, neither of us are hurt.”

“ _ Neither _ of you?”

“I’m here too,” Jude stated, pulling the body off the floor. “Just…. There was an intruder.” Patrick grimaced at the spots of blood on the floor. “I’ll clean up, you two go back to bed.”

“What-”

“-We’ll talk about it in the morning, let’s go back upstairs.”

“Oh Patrick tell me he didn’t-”

“I don’t know where he got it, Gen, we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“You have to go help him, you can’t….”

“I will.” 

When they got to the bedroom she sat on the bed, hands clenched in her lap.

“Do you think it was Cullen’s?”

“If it wasn’t, he must have gotten it because of him,” Patrick sighed. 

“Go to him now, he needs you more than I do.” He nodded, before remembering again that she couldn’t see that anymore.

“Yes, of course.”

In the light of the full moon Patrick Hepburn could see the lanky form of Jude, followed by their dogs, as he walked through the pasture carrying the man’s body over his shoulder. The man took two shovels from the garden shed, and followed after him.

They dug the grave in the copse of trees past the barn. They dug in silence. They stared at the body at the bottom.

“He would have killed you,” Jude stated flatly.

“I know. But that won’t stop me from wishing you hadn’t.” For a while, Jude didn’t reply. Instead he got to work putting the dirt back from where they had taken it.

“I can’t keep losing people,” he said eventually.

“And you  _ haven’t  _ lost us, Jude. I’m alright. Genevive is even doing well enough on her own now that you may be able to go back to school in a few months, I just…. Well. You’ve killed someone, and I’m not sure what to think of it.” He leaned on his shovel, looking at the young man. His curly auburn hair looked brown in the moonlight as he continued to fill the grave.”Where’d you get the revolver?”

“It was in your brother’s room. Took it before I left. I guess we have two now, though I bet ma’ll want them out of the house.”

“She probably will,” Patrick agreed, going back to shoveling.

“What should we tell neighbors, if they heard it?”

“Oh, we’ll figure it out. No one has any reasons to suspect this.”

Jude threw a few sticks for the border collie Maggy as they trudged back to the house. Their great pyrenees Cedar walked calmly behind them. They scrubbed the wooden floor clean, and made plans to fix and paint over the hole in the wall. Several days later, all was well and forgotten. Nathaniel was dead, and the citizens of Charlottetown and Avonlea were none the wiser.

<>

“So, no Mr. Philipses at this school?” Gilbert asked as he and Cole walked from the train station to Dr. Ward’s practice. 

“Not a Philips to be seen,” Cole replied, grinning. It had become a habit, in the weeks after he’d run away, to meet Gilbert at the train station on Saturdays. He came with updates on their friends, and usually a letter or two from Anne and Diana, which Cole would respond to in time to give to Gilbert before he left for Avonlea on Sundays. It was a nice way to stay connected.

“I’m glad.” Gilbert was about to say something else when he looked past Cole, into the alley they were crossing. He stopped abruptly. There were two young men, one had his hands around the others throat. Cole stopped and saw them as well.

“Hey!” Cole’s shout startled the brown haired man, who slammed the back of the other’s head against the brick wall before he turned and ran. All thoughts of chasing after him vanished as they saw the redhead crumple to the ground. He was already beginning to sit up when they reached him, but Gilbert knew better than to think that meant he was okay.

“Are you alright?” Cole asked as they crouched on either side of him. He seemed about to speak, but he coughed instead.

“We should take you to Dr. Ward,” Gilbert said.

“No,” he wheezed.

“Someone needs to check your throat, and you probably have a concussion-”

“-I’ll be fine.” Gilbert shot an exasperated look at Cole.

“What’s your name?” Cole asked.

“Jude.”

“Where were you headed?”

“Home.”

“Well if you won’t get a check up can you at least let him walk you there in case something happens?” Gilbert asked. Brown eyes glared at him through a curtain of overgrown hair. He could see that small blood vessels had popped across Jude’s cheeks, giving him angry red freckles beneath the ones he already had.

“Fine.” He stood up, leaning against the wall for support as he waited for a spell of dizziness to pass. When they stood up as well they were surprised at how tall Jude was. He had at least a few inches even on Cole. He picked his flat cap off the ground. He pushed his hair back before putting it on, and Gilbert couldn’t help but find his round eyes familiar somehow. Jude’s home was in the other direction, so Gilbert and Cole said their goodbyes there.

“We live a little bit far from the rest of town,” Jude told him apologetically. His voice was raspy, but he had stopped coughing. Cole hoped that was a good sign.

“That’s not a problem.”

They walked until the paved street became dirt, and the homes became sparser until there seemed to only be trees. 

“Thanks for, uh, chasing him off.” Jude said eventually.

“What happened? You said he didn’t take anything. Do you know him?”

“He… doesn’t want me being friends with his brother.”

“Oh.” Cole wasn’t sure what else to say.

“I doubt he’ll do it again. I don’t think he actually has the guts to kill anyone.” He didn’t sound convinced. Cole decided not to pry. As they walked further down the path the smell of flowers wafted down the breeze. “We’re close,” Jude stated. The path intercepted with a wagon trail, which Cole followed him onto. Eventually a large white farmhouse came into view through the trees, along with a truly massive garden. Not everything was blooming yet, but as they walked up to the porch Cole could see little stone pathways through the plants that seemed to wrap around the entire house. If Gertrude’s Soiree wasn’t in the middle of winter, it would have made sense for the flowers Josephine had decorated with to have come from here. Jude saw him looking around and grinned.

“It’s our dye garden,” he explained.

“I’ve never seen one so… large, before.”

“Lots of wool needs lots of dyes,” Jude shrugged. “You should see it in summer, proper, smells almost strong enough to cover up my oils.”

“Your what?”

“Oh, I uh, paint. Oil paint smells somethin’ awful, Ma makes me do it in the shed out back so I don’t stink up the house.” His eyes crinkled when he smiled, and his teeth were crooked.

“You’re an artist? So am I!”

“Really?”

“I’ve mostly worked with clay recently, but I draw as well.”

“Well, if you ever… want to study plants, we’ve, uh, got a lot of them.” Jude winced at the awkward invitation, but when it made the other boy laugh good naturedly it didn’t seem as bad. “I don’t think I ever caught your name…?”

“Oh! I’m Cole, Cole Mackenzie.” They shook hands, and Jude looked away back toward the house so the other boy wouldn’t notice how red his face was turning.

“Last name’s Hepburn,” he said. “I should… go help my mom with lunch. It was nice meeting you, Cole. Thanks.”

“Of course. I- I’ll see you around, I guess?” Jude took a step back and laughed.

“Well you  _ do  _ know where I live, now; my parents wouldn’t mind if you stopped by.”

“Oh, alright. Goodbye for now, then.”

“Goodbye.”

They waved one last time before Cole disappeared into the trees.

“Was that a new friend I heard?” Mrs. Hepburn asked when Jude ducked into the kitchen.

“Yeah, I uh… met him at the shop. He walked home with me so we could talk.” He fixed the locations of the glasses she had put down when setting the table (everything else was fine) and started pouring the three of them water.

“That’s nice. Where does he live?” Jude froze. At his silence, she looked over to the table. “You didn’t ask him did you?”

“Oh no,” he groaned, sitting down defeatedly, “what if he doesn’t even _live_ here?!”

“Oh, Jude,” she sighed, taking the pot of soup off of the stove, “I’m sure you’ll run into each other again soon. Good friends are always bound to find one another more than once.” She walked over to the side of the table he always sat at. When she found his shoulder she gave it a big squeeze.

“You think so?”

“Of course. Now go ring the bell so your father knows it's lunch time.”

As he walked out to the barn, Jude wondered how long it would take, not knowing he would hardly be waiting at all.


	2. Old Ties

There was a slight commotion in the school yard when Cole got there Monday morning, centered mostly around one of the windows looking into the second classroom; their own.

"Is something going on?"

"There had better be," Catherine Tailor replied. "It'd be weird for Kitty to just watch Ms. Stevens grade our chemistry tests."

"She's talking to someone, Cathy!" Francine stage-whispered from where she stood behind Katherine O'Connell, or Kitty, as she was known at school. 

"We're trying to figure out who it is," Kitty added. Cathy heaved a sigh.

"You  _ know _ who it is, don't you remember their talk before we were dismissed from the gallery on Friday?"

“No, because  _ someone _ forgot to check his watch and made us late!” 

Cathy looked at Cole.

“Again?”

“Yeah…”

“And his watch is now  _ mine _ for the duration of any future gallery walks,” Kitty declared. The older Catherine continued to stare at him.

“Are you being bullied by a 14 year old girl, Mackenzie?” she asked, failing to keep a straight face.

“No,” Cole laughed, “it really is in our best interest for her to have the watch, Mr. Jones yelled at us.”

“Ugh, Jones is always yelling at someone,” she replied. Seeing Cole’s frown she continued: “He does  _ not _ have the patience to teach the younger class.  _ Us _ he can handle. 10 year olds, he cannot.”

“I don’t think anyone can handle an entire room full of 10 through 13 year olds,” Francine grimaced, finally leaving the window. 

“Ms. Stevens handles them just fine,” Cathy replied. Francine, who was fifteen and had four siblings in the younger class, two of whom were twins, gave her a solemn look.

“Ms. Stevens is a special kind of saint.”

“I don’t think she’d ever be able to have kids because if she did she wouldn’t have  _ any _ patience left for them after school ended,” Kitty stated. Cathy snorted.

“So, you said you knew who the new student was?” Francine asked, but then the doors to the schoolhouse opened and Mr. Jones started herding the younger class, which he taught in the morning, into their room.

“Looks like you’ll have to meet him yourself,” Cathy shrugged.

“Ooo, this means we have an even number of boys again, I bet he’ll be sitting with you, Cole,” Kitty said.

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," he admitted as they hung their coats in the entryway of their classroom.

"I guess you'll have a drawing partner then," Cathy grinned. Cole gave her a questioning look as they walked into the room, but she just shrugged and kept grinning. Cole's table was in a middle row, near one of the windows. When he looked up as he put his books down he almost tripped over the bench. 

Standing at the front talking to Ms. Stevens was Jude Hepburn.

" _ You know him?!" _ He mouthed to Cathy across the isle.

" _ Tell you later," _ she replied, though knowing her it would probably be less 'telling' and more 'tight balls of paper flicked at his books with frightening accuracy'. Cole sighed and opened his algebra notes.

“Cole could you raise your hand, please?” Ms. Stevens called. He looked up and made eye contact with Jude, who seemed positively bewildered at the fact that they were now classmates. He gave a small wave, and Jude walked down the isle to sit with him.

“So, my knight in shining armor lives in Charlottetown after all,” the older boy remarked, though his face was beet red. They both laughed. Neither of them could look at the other. Everyone seemed to be staring at Jude, some were whispering. “I’ve been out of school for two years, so some people know me and some don’t,” he said eventually. “They’re probably just catching the younger ones up on the gossip.” Cole wanted to ask why, but Ms. Stevens started the lesson. It would have to wait.

It would apparently have to wait longer than Cole thought it would because once Ms. Stevens had called for lunch recess he had no idea where Jude had gone.

“He’s probably on the second floor, that’s where he and Peter used to go to eat lunch,” Cathy stated as they sat around their usual tree stump.

“Oh,  _ Peter _ …” Francine winced.

“Who was Peter?” Cole asked slowly, as it seemed as though they were suddenly speaking of something taboo.

“Peter Vincent, he’s the Minister’s eldest son, Gabriel’s older brother,” Francine explained. Cole looked over his shoulder to where Gabe and his friends were fighting each other with large sticks they seemed to keep hidden somewhere on the school grounds just for that purpose.

“Jude came here when he was 12,” Cathy began, “Peter was Jude’s first friend. And his only one for a while. They were best friends for years.”

“No one’s really sure what happened,” Francine said.

“We think they had some sort of... falling out-”

“-I think it was a fight-”

“-at some point during our class’s barn dance, a little over two years ago,  _ something  _ happened, and they stopped talking to each other. Peter wouldn’t even  _ sit _ next to him.”

“ _ And _ Jude stopped going to church; we don’t know how those things are related but he can’t have stopped because Mrs. Hepburn was getting sick because the dance happened  _ months _ before that.”

“Mrs. Hepburn got sick?” Cole asked.

“That’s why Jude had to leave school,” Cathy stated, “She had scarlet fever first, and then something caused her to go blind. I guess she’s somehow managing the house fine  _ that _ way, if Jude’s able to come back to school.”

Kitty, who had been in the first class still when all this had happened and thus had nothing to say on the matter, finally piped up.

“Was he the boy with the violin?”

“Oh dear Lord-” Francine muttered.

“Yes,” Cathy laughed, “he was the boy with the violin.”

“Well  _ now _ I’m invested in his return!” Kitty declared indignantly, “Why didn’t you make that clarification  _ earlier _ ?”

“He used to bring his violin to school sometimes to play for us during recess so we could dance,” Francine explained to Cole in an aside, “Kitty was  _ smitten _ .”

“Well I didn’t think you would care seeing as you didn’t even recognise his  _ name _ ,” Cathy replied to her.

“I never  _ knew _ his name,” Kitty cried, “He was always a class ahead of me! You don’t  _ talk _ to boys in the class ahead of you!”

“Well you’re in the same class now,” Francine pointed out, “maybe you can use that to your advantage.”

“Noooo…” Kitty moaned, head in hands, “then  _ Gabriel _ would  _ never _ talk to me…”

“Oh dear Lord,” Francine muttered again, shaking her head.

“Oh, that… may be the reason he isn’t out here, actually,” Cathy realized.

“Oh…” Cole muttered, remembering suddenly. ‘ _ He… doesn’t want me being friends with his brother.’  _ “Oh…”

“Something wrong…?”

“No.” 

He wasn’t sure if it counted as a lie or not.

  
  


“What is on your desk, Mr. Hepburn?” Mr. Jones asked when Jude walked in with the other students and put his things down next to Cole’s.

“My… books…?”

“Is that  _ all _ ?” The teacher asked, walking up to them. Cole instinctively hid his sketchbook, startled at the usually pleasant man’s tone of voice.

“My pen and notebook? I-... why are you yelling at me?” Students who had followed Jude into the room were standing awkwardly in the doorway and whispering, not wanting to pass the impending incident in order to get to their seats.

“Sir.”

“What?”

“You will address me as  _ Sir _ , in this classroom, Hepburn, or are you rude as well as lacking in common sense?”

“Okay…. Well I still don’t understand why you are yelling at me,  _ Sir _ .”

“The  _ flask _ , Hepburn. How dare you have the  _ audacity _ to bring such a thing into this school-”

“-We’re not allowed to drink water?” The class fell silent. Cole glanced at Catherine, who pantomimed pulling out her black hair. Jude and Mr. Jones stared at each other for another tense few seconds.

“Am I supposed to believe you have  _ ‘water’ _ , in a  _ hip flask _ ?” Mr. Jones asked coldly.

“Well I assumed everyone would have the  _ common sense _ to know you don’t bring  _ alcohol _ into  _ school _ , and thus know it was water.  _ Sir _ .”

_ “Oh Jesus Christ,” _ Cole heard Robert Tailor mutter behind them.

“Watch your tone, young man, I will not be argued with in my classroom.”

“I’m not arguing with you, I’m defending myself!”

“Then think of better ways to do that when you’re staying after class this evening.”

“What?!”

“And tomorrow? Bring your water in a canteen, like a  _ normal  _ person.” Mr. Jones turned away. Jude opened his mouth to say something else but Cole kicked him in the shin to stop him. “To your seats, everyone, class has begun.” Cole quickly scribbled a note on an already torn piece of paper.

**_Sorry I kicked you, saying anything else would have just gotten you into more trouble._ **

Jude read it, wrote something, and passed it back.

**_Is that Mr. Jones then?_ **

**_Yes._ **

**_I_ ** **_would_ ** **_have used a canteen, if I had_ ** **_found_ ** **_one._ **

**_Saying that_ ** **_definitely_ ** **_would have made it worse._ **

When Jude next passed the paper back there was a small angry looking face drawn on it. Tension broken, they made eye contact and had to stifle their laughter. From there, class went on as normal.

Cole waited for him when class was dismissed.

“What’s Mr. Jones having you do?” he asked when Jude left the room.

“Clean out the supply closet: dust the shelves and make sure the extra slates are clean.”

“Do you want help?” Jude stared blankly at him for a moment.

“You’re not in trouble, though.”

“Did Mr. Jones say you had to do it alone?”

“No…” Cole shrugged.

“Let’s go find the supply closet, then.” They walked through the bustle of other students leaving the building, where the door sat between the staircase and the first classes room. Jude unlocked it with the key Mr. Jones had given him, leaving it in the door.

“Doesn’t seem like too much to take off of the shelves,” Jude stated, looking around. The door slammed shut, plunging the tight, windowless room in darkness. They heard stifled laughter as the lock clicked. “What the hell?” Jude pounded on the door.

“Have fun in there, freak,” someone called, followed by more laughter and the sound of them all leaving.

“Gabriel you son of a- ugh!” Cole felt around the shelf behind him for the box of candles and matches he’d noticed before, and lit one. “Are you insane?!” Jude squeaked, pinching it out immediately, “This is probably the most  _ flammable _ part of the entire building! Everything is wood and paper and way too close together!” 

“I just assumed you’d want to be able to see.” He heard Jude turn back to the door and feel around its edges.

“The hinges are on the other side,” Jude stated, kneeling down. “The key is still in the door, do you have any paper? I might be able to poke it out. If it falls on the paper we could pull it over to this side.” Cole thought for a moment, trying to remember if he had seen any loose paper, before remembering the half-sheet they had been passing back and forth during class that he had folded up in his pocket. 

“Yeah, yeah I do, actually.” He put the candle back on the shelf and pulled it out.

“Perfect.” They fumbled through handing it off, since they couldn’t see each other. Cole heard Jude slip the paper under the crack in the door, and then unfold a pocket knife. He scraped around the keyhole with it until it tinged to the floor on the other side.

“Is it on the paper?”

“Yeah, I just…” Jude muttered some curses under his breath. “The crack’s not wide enough for the key to pull through.”

“Oh no…” Cole sighed, deciding to join Jude in sitting on the floor. “How long do you think it will take Mr. Jones to check on you?”

“I don’t know him,” Jude replied, which was an odd way to answer the question, but it was also true.

“Alright.” Neither of them said anything. Cole could hear Jude anxiously bouncing his leg.

“Sorry you got dragged into this.”

“It’s not your fault.” They sat in silence a little while longer. Eventually, Cole thought of something. “This room shares a wall with the younger class,” he remembered. “Do you think Ms. Stevens is still in there?”

“Why?”

“Maybe if we knock on it she’ll hear us,” he explained.

“Oh! Yeah. that’s worth a try.”

Cole scooted to the back of the closet, where he’d be closer to the teacher’s desk, and knocked loudly on the wall. The sound of a book being dropped accompanied by a muffled ‘dear heavens’ confirmed that yes, Ms. Stevens was indeed still in the classroom.

“Sorry,” he called, “Ms. Stevens it’s Cole, we got locked in the closet.”

“Who is ‘we’?” The young woman asked.

“Jude,” said Jude. They heard Ms. Stevens leave the classroom, pick the key off the floor, and unlock the door. When she opened it she saw them both sitting on the floor, covered in dust from crouching beneath the lowest shelf to speak through the wall.

“And what were the two of you boys doing in here?”

“Mr. Jones-”

“I got in trouble again-” They stopped and looked at each other.

“He gave you detention? You only just met!”

“Yeah….”

Ms. Stevens put her hands on her hips and sighed.

“What happened?”

“I put my water in a flask because I couldn’t find a canteen this morning and he thought it was alcohol.”

“Did you explain to him that it was water?”

“My tone came out wrong.”

“Ah…. And how does this lead to the  _ both  _ of you being stuck in the closet?”

“He wants me to clean the shelves and slates, and Cole wanted to help me, but… someone locked the door on us when everyone was leaving.”

“I see. Well, get on with your dusting then, I’ll go speak with him.”

“Y-you will?”

“Of course. It won’t do well for you to be clashing with him in the future just because of this. I’ll make sure he understands that you didn’t mean come off as you did so that you can apologize without worrying he’ll get upset with you again.”

“Thank you….”

Ms. Stevens smiled kindly and left them to their work. 

Between the two of them and a small step stool the closet was dusted out within the half-hour. Before they left Jude was able to apologize for his tone, and Mr. Jones likewise apologized for saying that Jude lacked common sense. When Cole and Jude realized they lived in different directions they lingered awkwardly.

“I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow, then?”

“Yeah. The Catherines and Francine and I usually sit by the stump, before class, if you want to join us.”

“Oh, alright.” Jude grinned.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

And with that, they went their separate ways.

**Author's Note:**

> comments make the chapter machine go brrrrrr please give me feedback  
> my tumblr is smallest-turtle


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